Luxury international swimwear and lifestyle brand, Vilebrequin, is enhancing its international unified commerce capabilities, thanks to a robust, omnichannel solution from Cegid.

Luxury international swimwear and lifestyle brand, Vilebrequin, is enhancing its international unified commerce capabilities, thanks to a robust, omnichannel solution from Cegid.

Founded in 1971 as a swimwear brand, which encapsulates the spirit and style of St Tropez, Vilebrequin has grown internationally into an iconic luxury lifestyle brand. Its current collection includes between 500 and 600 styles, from bathing suits to menswear and womenswear collections, as well as gifting. The brand now distributes garments to 900 stores, from its own exclusive boutiques to concessions in Harrods and Selfridges and via wholesalers, who account for a significant part of the its sales.

Vilebrequin has a long-standing partnership with Cegid, having already integrated its vast network of resellers onto one platform from Cegid in 2003, and latterly updating its back-office systems, from procurement, merchandising, inventory, deliveries and billing, using Yourcegid Retail. With a focus on growing direct-to-consumer sales, Vilebrequin also implemented Cegid’s Point of Sale (POS) solution across its European and US stores, as well as launching a mobile-first ecommerce channel, a move which saw online sales double each year for the past three years.

Christian Roche, IT Director at Vilebrequin, said: “While our exclusive international boutiques are our main sales channel, our objective was to increase our sales revenue, and focusing on digital growth was one of the main ways to achieve this. The stores that have deployed Cegid’s solution on tablets have registered an increase in sales of between 2% and 5%.”

Looking to enhance its omnichannel customer experience capabilities even further, Vilebrequin now offers click-and-collect, with orders fulfilled from its central warehouse, thanks to a single view of stock afforded by the Cegid platform.

This, combined with a 360-degree customer view, has allowed the luxury swimwear brand to personalise encounters to enhance shopping experiences across its channels, as well as empowering store staff with up-selling and cross-selling capabilities on tablet POS devices, via the implementation of Cegid’s Clienteling, Cataloguing and Shopping modules.

Samir Belkhayat, UK Director at Cegid, commented: “Digitalising the in-store environment with tablet devices to provide store associates with a single view of stock was particularly important in Vilebrequin’s omnichannel operations, especially when it came to driving conversion. As most of its stores are small format – measuring on average 300sq ft – it was unlikely the depth and breadth of stock would be available at any one time. Being able to showcase the entire collection to customers and order items to the customer’s home or to store has increased conversions, helping Vilebrequin ensure that an opportunity for a sale is never missed and their reputation is enhanced across each sales channel.”

This year, a new service will be added to Vilebrquin’s multichannel offer: ship from store. This will allow the brand to fulfil an online order from within a store’s inventory, with plans to also introduce ultra-fast delivery options with order fulfilled within two hours by courier.

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